Man Ray (and Lee Miller)

MAN RAY

 

“I was very fortunate in starting my career as a painter. When first confronted with a camera, I was very much intimidated. So I decided to investigate. But I maintained the approach of a painter to such a degree that I have been accused of trying to make a photograph look like a painting. I did not have to try, it just turned out that way because of my background and my training… To me, a painter, if not the most useful, is the least harmful member of our society.“ Man Ray

Man Ray     Self-portrait with His Painting “Observatory Time - The Lovers,” Paris      1936 

The lips in the painting are those of his lost lover, Lee Miller.

 “I meet you in the even light and empty space, and, my only reality, kiss you” Man Ray, in a poem to accompany “Observatory Time – The Lovers.”  The lips are those of Lee Miller and the painting/installation was made to commemorate Man Ray’s despair at his breaking off with her.

“I was chasing him.  He looked like a bull with an extraordinary torso and very dark eyebrows and dark hair… If he took your hand or touched you, you felt an almost magnetic heat…

 I said, ‘My name is Lee Miller, and I’m your new student.’ 

Man said, ‘I don’t have students.’ He was leaving for Biarritz the next day, and I said, ‘So am I.’ 

I never looked back!”  Lee Miller, on how she met Man Ray in a Paris bar and became his lover, his muse, his collaborator and his colleague.

“I would rather take a photograph than be one.” Lee Miller